Friday, April 13, 2012

When to use someone else’s infographic

Everybody loves infographics. They look at them, share them and talk about them. It’s a great way to create engaging content that will really make the rounds. Unfortunately, they aren’t easy to produce. You need access to great design talent paired with the ability to generate relevant data and turn it into a story. So, you really need: a designer, a business expert (for the data) and a writer. That one image is turning into quite a project!

But, it’s worth it. The return on your investment, at least in getting people to your corporate blog or website, is likely to be substantial. Instead of biting the bullet, though, you can borrow instead.

Last week, I ran an infographic produced by OpenView Venture Partners (with their permission). The results were great for everyone.

By embedding it into a B2B Marketing Hub post, I was able to (a) get fresh content, (b) deliver something with visual impact and (c) gain the benefits of something that was shared a lot. The post was good for plenty of net-new traffic, giving me a chance to expand my audience.

Success.

And, it worked for OpenView Venture Partners. They got the link from my blog, and their branding and market intelligence are all over the infographic. As my post was tweeted and clicked, so was their infographic. I helped them generate more views.

The moral of the story: if you can’t develop your own infographics, see if you can borrow them (from a company relevant to your market but not a competitor. Everybody wins.